The Errors Of the Patriot
by DeductionIsKey
Summary: In the aftermath of the Accords, Steve Rogers searches for a way to help Tony. But Tony doesn't need it. - "So, um. Are we good, Tony?" Steve said awkwardly in the silence of the barely present stars of New York City. Tony didn't answer. -


They were given back their rooms in the Tower.

It was more of a technicality than anything else. It's not a gift, that Tony makes clear.

" _-your new rooms." Tony gestures to the brand new team of superheros. The rooms broad over 4 floors, way too much space as far as Steve was concerned. "I figured, Avengers should live in the same place right?" Only Natasha and Steve heard the nervous and hysterical laugh that escaped quietly after that sentence._

" _It's great, Tony." Steve said._

 _Tony smiled. "Just a gift." He replied._

This was not a gift.

Tony was different, Steve noticed. He smiled less, winced at movement close to his chest. And Steve was the reason.

 _The shield hit with a crush at the blue arc reactor, Steve's vision tinted red with anger. He tried to kill Bucky, he triedtokillbucky._

 _He was killing him._

Tony had new friends. New people to rely on, to talk to when sad or angry. He had a quirky teen that blushed every time he did something wrong or his voice cracked. He had Peter.

Peter brings a new part of Tony out, one that Steve hasn't seen before. It's a fatherly affection that spreads over his face like a glow, his eyes filling up with pride and fond exasperation. Peter doesn't notice, but then neither does Tony.

" _Underoos!"_

He got his shield back. It's red and blue tint clasped onto him like a blanket as he smooths his hand over it, feeling the familiar vibranium. It was his. Wasn't it?

" _My father made that shield."_

The first time Steve meets Rhodes again, Tony punches him. Steve lets him.

The first time Steve came out of the ice, he didn't get any of the jokes Tony would crack. Over time however, the inside jokes had piled up, causing bursts of laughs to escape him. The pile of jokes had crumbled.

" _Hand me the lettuce, Parker." It was a 'team' dinner. Steve usually didn't come down to these, choosing to stand up in his room, knowing his presence wouldn't be missed._

" _Sure, Mr. Stark." The room was tense as Peter passed the lettuce to Tony, and Steve awkwardly picked his salad thoughtlessly._

" _So, Mr. Rogers," Steve started at the voice that had addressed him. "Um, ye-yes?" Peter grinned, his eyebrows furrowed and comical. "Is there any electrical doodads in your suit?"_

 _That wasn't the question Steve had expected, but still he sat up and straightened his back. "Um, yeah. My coms and things."_

" _So, you haven't gotten past your training wheels protocol yet?"_

 _Tony choked._

"So, um. Are we good, Tony?" Steve said awkwardly in the silence of the barely present stars of New York City.

Tony didn't answer.

" _So was I."_

Tony's music has changed also. It was still garnish, holding that arrogance Steve always had thought was in Tony. But on nights, when Steve would come down to see if Tony was asleep or if he needed anything - _I don't need anything from you-_ he would see Tony dosing on the lab table, Mahler's 5th Symphony playing in the background.

" _Take that suit off, what are you?"_

A better man than Steve.

He was too used to being adored, he realized as he walked around and was surprised to see people glared. One child, "Isn't that the man that hit Iron-Man?"

He wasn't the hero. He was the man who broke the hero.

" _How do you stand it?" Steve asked Peter later on the room of Stark Tower. "All that negative press and the Daily Bugle trashing you?"_

 _Peter shrugged. "I guess I'm used to it. I mean it's just lies, it not like I do all those things they say I do."_

Steve did all those things they said.

Rhodes forgives Captain America and Falcon.

He didn't say he forgave Steve and Sam.

" _Tony Stank." Rhodes snorted in his chair, his lips curling as he took the letter. "Who's Tony Stank?"_

" _Just an inside joke." Rhodes said waving away his question. "It doesn't matter."_

 _What matters?_

Steve tries to help Tony, apologising at every little thing

It's that might be offensive. Tony finally snaps.

" _I don't need you!"_

Tony doesn't need him.

But maybe he needs Tony.

People eventually stop whispering when Steve walks into a store. He has people smile when he walks by, but more people frown.

" _December 16th, 1991: Mission Report."_

Tony asks about Bucky. It's catches Steve off guard, but it seems everything does these days.

" _Is he okay?" Steve looked over to Stark, who was fiddling with some piece of machinery. Steve wasn't even going to try to figure out what it was. "Who?" Steve asked, thinking Tony was talking about T'Challa._

" _Barnes." Steve froze, thinking a mile a minute. "Uh-yeah, yeah. He's a- fine, he's fine." Tony nodded. And that was the end of it._

Steve wonders what that says about him that he had never asked after Rhodes.

A lot of people ask Steve, on the street, in stores, even after press conferences, if he regrets the 'Civil War'. The terrifying thing about that question is, he doesn't know.

" _You did the thing you thought was right," Peter said after Steve had once again missed Team Dinner. "That doesn't mean it was."_

It gets better, Steve thinks, as time goes on and things slow down. But Tony still flinches when Steve gets angry, or when he picks his shield, and Steve thinks that it's such a cruel sense of justice it's ironic.

Tony is not Howard. Steve had always thought of Tony has a certain different but certainly the same, part of his old friend. But now, with the scar on his heart and bags under his eyes, Steve doesn't even see Howard anymore. He sees Tony the man people think doesn't feel, but feels too much. He sees Iron Man, the superhero that got broken as his ex-friend pounded his fathers creation into his heart. But he doesn't see Howard. He sees Tony.

" _If we can't accept limitations, we're no better than the_

 _bad guys." Tony had said._

 _Maybe Steve is one of them._

Steve had saved Bucky that day at the airport. But he'd lost Tony.


End file.
